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Aabra Ka Daabra
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mundeemo and bitpig came over tonight and we watched Aabra Ka Daabra: The School of Magic, the Harry Potter-inspired Bollywood film I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.
I'd forgotten that the review I read mentions a passing similarity to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at one part, and indeed the movie stops dead after our protagonist, Shanu, gets to the school and goes into flashback where he wins two contests. The similarity is not so much passing as utter, and we burst into "I've got aGolden Ticket Diamond Wrapping" after he won one of the contests.
Probably not-so-coincidentally, the bits that are the closest to Harry Potter and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are the most coherent. Which isn't saying much - the DVD I've got had some problem in two spots and I ended up jumping to the next chapter, and it's not like we missed huge chunks of plot by doing that.
There is also a small badly-CGed ghost or spirit of some kind named TuTu, which combines the most annoying qualities of Tinkerbell and ChuChu, and a flying head with wings.
The two things that are absolutely worth the $5.99 price tag are the way several of the main actors are credited during the opening sequence, and all-out singing, dancing, costumes praise to Shiva that's shoehorned into the middle of the film, "Shiv Om."
We didn't watch the cut scenes, which apparently include a few more musical numbers.
I'm going to have to figure out how to do some screencapping from this DVD, for a reason which I'll explain after I manage to do so, because it really has to be seen to be believed.
mundeemo and bitpig came over tonight and we watched Aabra Ka Daabra: The School of Magic, the Harry Potter-inspired Bollywood film I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.I'd forgotten that the review I read mentions a passing similarity to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at one part, and indeed the movie stops dead after our protagonist, Shanu, gets to the school and goes into flashback where he wins two contests. The similarity is not so much passing as utter, and we burst into "I've got a
Probably not-so-coincidentally, the bits that are the closest to Harry Potter and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are the most coherent. Which isn't saying much - the DVD I've got had some problem in two spots and I ended up jumping to the next chapter, and it's not like we missed huge chunks of plot by doing that.
There is also a small badly-CGed ghost or spirit of some kind named TuTu, which combines the most annoying qualities of Tinkerbell and ChuChu, and a flying head with wings.
The two things that are absolutely worth the $5.99 price tag are the way several of the main actors are credited during the opening sequence, and all-out singing, dancing, costumes praise to Shiva that's shoehorned into the middle of the film, "Shiv Om."
We didn't watch the cut scenes, which apparently include a few more musical numbers.
I'm going to have to figure out how to do some screencapping from this DVD, for a reason which I'll explain after I manage to do so, because it really has to be seen to be believed.